Tunable liquid crystal filters that vary the electrical-optical properties of liquid crystal materials have a variety of uses. Currently, tunable liquid crystals use direct current (DC) fields to control the tuning of an active system. Such tunable liquid crystal filter systems are limited by the fact that the optical wavelength must be known a priori and the tuning must be controlled by an electric device such as by cueing to tune the liquid crystal medium to filter the optical wavelength that is anticipated.